Illustration and other wonders

hoosing the images to beautify the Battenberg was a slightly bamboozling experience that felt like treasure hunting on the internet. I wanted to find some old and evocative natural history illustrations that would convey the variety of ecological wonders that may be encountered on the Battenberg's voyage. I love the ability of illustration to express a quite magical natural world, full of intricacies, and occasional inaccuracies. So sometime this year, a pilgrimage to the new 'Images of Nature' gallery at the Natural History Museum is definitely in order.

In searching for something to go with the venerable picture of Darwin's own Beagle, I came across some wonderful sources of public domain images, and thought I would share some of the loveliest. The first is Vintage Printable, from which these beauties come:

Educational beetles

Magnolia by Mark Catesby

Octopus called Polypus levis Hoyle

Indian Owl by Johann Reinhold Forster - any ideas Radish?

Medieval - that's all I've got on that one!

Another source led me to Mr Edward Lear's work (not just a purveyor of fine nonsense, but also exemplary painting). So here can be found his famous Psittacidae.

Red-capped parakeet - Platycercus pileatus

Salmon-crested cockatoo - Plyctolophus rosaceus

The rather splendid Old Book Art brought that elusive lepidopteran resident of Norfolk and a whole book of mushrooms:

Swallowtail - Papilio machaon

Fly agaric with Linnean name Agaricus muscarius

And so to a delight of a different, and more edible kind. Wonder cake, my most frequently made, flexible and reliable recipe. It is particularly useful, because it happens to be vegan, and can be adapted to use whatever ingredients you have left over from other baking endeavours. It can be chocolately, fruit and nutty, spicy or all of the above. This one for example, is an almondy slice with pieces of crystallised ginger and flaked almonds as a slightly crispy topping:

Marzipan and ginger wonder cake

You will need much of the following:
175g self raising flour
3 heaped tablespoons cocoa or ground almonds (or some of both)
175g golden caster sugar
5tbsp sunflower oil
1tbsp red wine/sherry vinegar
1/2 tbsp vanilla or almond essence (or orange or peppermint if you fancy)
200ml cold water

And a selection of:
Flaked almonds
Pecan or walnut pieces
Chopped cranberries or other dried fruit
Chopped crystallised ginger
A few squares of very dark chocolate
Other goodies

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and line or grease a square/oblong cake tin/pyrex dish.
- Sift the flour, cocoa and spices (if using) into the tin. Add the almonds (if using) and sugar and stir to combine.
- Mark out three parallel grooves in the mixture. Add the oil to one, the vinegar to the next and the flavoured essence to the third.
- Pour over the 200ml cold water, then carefully stir everything together until well mixed, ensuring you get into the corners.
- If adding topping, sprinkle over the mixture your combination of nuts/fruit/ginger.
- Bake for about 20-25 minutes and leave in the tin on a wire rack to cool.
- If you are going for chocolate, melt your squares and flick across the cake using a teaspoon to create a Jackson Pollock-alike pud. Leave to set then cut into slices and have with a hot beverage.

You can do anything with this cake. If you use the chocolate version and add just a small amount of ground almonds, it becomes a slightly gooier affair. I've made a couple of nice variations recently, one almond, with flaked almonds, cranberries and chocolate topping. The other, chocolate, with cinnamon and nutmeg added to the flour, and cranberries and pecan topping. And the ginger one above of course, which is about to get munched.

Ooh and lastly, recently my mother made a batch of biscuits which made the biologist in me smile, as they reminded me of either cells with jammy nuclei, or honeycomb with jammy larvae...

Mmm, organelles in my biscuit!

Now light is creeping back into the days, and I've seen some Roe deer brazenly browsing the neighbour's field at two in the afternoon, there might even be a few more ecology related posts in the near future... watching for Spring.

The Bleak Midwinter

ust as the memory of the icing white valley has faded, it seems right to write about the snow. Winter arrived with a vengeance, blanketing every branch, rock and tangle of vegetation in my garden, and everywhere else, with cold cotton wool. In those frozen days of tumbling pedestrians and plaintive birdsong I decided to follow the advice of some lovely birdy boys (DN, Gareth and PTM) and have an avian baking session. And so the seedy muffins made their appearance.

Everyone loves a seedy muffin...

This highly technical recipe required:

Some wild bird seed
Some suet
A handful of currants

Melt the suet and stir in the seed and currants before dolloping into muffin cases and leaving to set. In some I put a loop of string so they could be hung on branches. Others I left without to break up and leave on the sundial for those who prefer to hop.

In December I spent a long weekend in Brussels, which while providing the Belgian culinary delights of frites, waffles and chocolate breasts (yes, really) did not offer much in the way of natural history diversions. This was until I took a chilly morning walk in one of the parks, where the air was rent with the screeches of Indian Ringnecked Parakeets (Psittacula krameri). I watched several frequent visitors to a cosy looking nesty hole, chuckling to myself as a curious beak emerged from its gloom, while the local joggers gave me a wide berth.

The only green in the trees that day

Back to the Yorkshire chill, and the unusual discoveries one makes as the weather laughs in the face of the memory of summer. We have a tunnel in our garden, which leads to a spring under the hillside. One morning, wandering about in the snow I noticed some interesting icy formations that had popped up along the floor of said tunnel. On closer inspection these phallic sentries were relatives of the stalactites and stalagmites of more adventurous caves. In school geography lessons some people get taught how to remember the different between these as 'Tites hold on tight, and mites might reach the top'. My school teacher had a different phrase, he said all he needed to know was that 'Tights come down'. Ahem.

Icemites

The festive season called for a festive addition to my crumble repertoire, and this has been the favourite combination of the last couple of months, created on a weekend spent with PTM and Shelby:

Topping
Oats
Flour
Butter or magarine
Demerara sugar
Cinnamon
Broken up walnut pieces

Fruit
3 cooking apples
~ 12-15 dates
A handful of sultanas
~ 1tsp cinnamon
~ 1tsp nutmeg
~ 1/2tsp ginger or mixed spice
Grated rind of 1-2 clementines
Juice of 2 clementines
~ 2 capfuls of dark rum

Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4.
- I tend to part-cook the fruit before assembling the crumble. Peel and chop your apples and put in a pan with the chopped dates, sultanas, spices, clementine peel and juice. Cook over a low heat for about 15 minutes until the fruit has softened, but not turned to mush. Stir through the rum and transfer to your crumble dish.
- Meanwhile make the topping by combining the flour, oats and cinnamon. Rub in the butter with your fingertips, so it becomes like coarse breadcrumbs. Stir through the sugar and walnuts, adding a little more butter if it seems too dusty. Add the topping to your fruit mixture.
- Cook for about 30-40 minutes. Custard, yoghurt, cream or ice-cream all go well with it. Not that I've tried of course...

Christmas is often a time that my family and I pad ourselves out with copious layers of clothing and venture out onto the hills to see how long we can last before losing feeling in our toes. This year it wasn't long, and I thought the best way to convey the bleakness was probably a picture. Note some Juncus (effusus probably?) in the foreground, it's all the ecology I can muster from this photo.

Wuthering heights... below Stoodley Pike

Impromptu ice sculpture atop Great Rock

On a brighter note, I did receive a wonderful gift from my sister this year, it's what every wannabe ecologist dreams of...

Eco-plaster with Amanita muscaria

A rather retro dessert was the pinnacle of our culinary creativity over New Year, after about 15 years of thinking about it, my sister and I finally made a Baked Alaska. It was hot, and cold, and really really good.

Snowy dome of gooey goodness

To repeat this meringue monstrosity try:

A medium flan case
500ml tub ice cream of your choice
Some frozen raspberries
3 egg whites
175g caster sugar
Some flaked almonds

First prepare the ice cream pyramid.
- Line a pudding bowl with cling film and fill with the ice cream and frozen raspberries, pressing to the edges of the bowl. Turn out the bowl into the flan case and leave to set in the freezer for about three hours.
- When ready to eat, preheat the oven to 220C/Gas 7.
- Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the sugar, whisking continuously until it is a thick, glossy meringue.
- To assemble, put the flan case on a lined baking tray and spoon the meringue over the top. Spread so it covers all of the ice cream and case, then sprinkle the almonds over it.
- Bake for 7-8 minutes until browned, then dust with icing sugar and eat immediately.

And now, commence waiting for a verdant spring.